Well, some time has passed since my last entry here. We have been traveling in the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland. And, the summer heat has broken here in Arizona and the beautiful autumn and winter weather has set in. It tends t drive one outdoors away from the model building bench.
Once we returned, I got right down to completing this model. When I have had a longish break in building a model, I sometimes lose all interest in it. Not here. I returned home looking forward to finishing the model.
The model was first painted with a base coat of Tamiya Grey Surface Primer. It sprays well and provides a good surface for final coats. It is expensive (about $10 per can) and a fair amount is used from the can on one model. However, it is an excellent product.
Gloss coats are not my favorite; I avoid them. But I could not here. I had some Model Master Acryl Sea Blue on hand and used that. The wheels wells are Acryl Zinc Chromate Yellow. Testors Glosscote was applied before and after the decals.
For decals, I used some from Berna Decals.Their sheet no. 48-14 offers a number of Bearcats in French Service in Indochina. Not that the kit decals were bad. I was just attracted to the markings provided by Berna, which I never used before, but will in the future if they have markings I want.
Here are some photos of the finished model. I think that Hobby Boss did a very nice job on this kit, and I look forward to building another model or two from their offerings.
One can only wonder what kind of combat record the F8F Bearcat would have compiled had the Pacific war dragged on further. The first U.S. Navy Bearcat unit was in the Pacific at the end of the war, but had only just arrived a short time before the war ended and never flew in combat. Jets came on so fast after the war (no pun intended) that the Bearcats quickly found themselves in reserve units.
As always, thank you for visiting my blog. I have several more kits I finished this year and will be posting them before long.
Nice work Matt. Un Bearcat magnifique! 🙂
ReplyDeleteThank you. I built this model as a personal tribute to the thousands of French fighting men and women who heroically fought the Battle of Dien Ben Phu to its tragic conclusion.
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